The Adventures of Sugawara Kōshi
by OnceUponMyTime
Summary: Introducing Karasuno High's detective, Sugawara Kōshi, and his adventures! Though his skills of a detective may be mediocre, he remains highly sought after by other students to solve bizarre and puzzling cases when he's not busy with volleyball. The rest of the team is there to support him- but there are also enemies and competitors to surpass.
1. An Introduction to Sugawara Kōshi

Sugawara Kōshi is definitely smart; he is in class 3-4 after all. Not only does his intelligence surpass half of the cohort, but his demure charisma makes him one of the most amiable students Karasuno High wold ever have.

But that is expected of him, is it not? What we do not know about him, however, is that he inertly aspires to be a world-class detective. Since a teenager helped to bring light to his village by devising electricity generators in Africa*, Sugawara could try to master the skills of a detective like Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

It was the end of the Christmas holidays. Students of Karasuno High School lazily trudged back to their classrooms with wishful pleas for the holiday to have lasted longer. Some of them simply could not wait to be back in school, reconnecting with their friends and classmates. The teachers secretly groaned for the inevitable hagging of holiday homework.

The volleyball boy's team was something else altogether. The spring tournament was just around the corner.

Hinata looked as though he suffered a dot of anorexia.

Asahi's hands kept shivering.

Yamaguchi's face seemed to have sprouted more freckles.

Kageyama looked a bit more buff- or he could just be breaking out in cold sweat under his jacket.

Ennoshita started his first lesson with his oral presentation of how he had spent the holidays.

Tanaka was trying his very, very best to fall asleep in the classroom with that barking-mad teacher.

Tsukishima kept playing a game in his mathematical calculator instead of solving mathematical questions.

Nishinoya went missing by the last period. Nobody knew where he ran off to.

Sugawara disappeared, too, and Daichi knew where he ran off to.

As the kerfuffle of his schoolmates dissolved after school's dismissal, Daichi briskly walked to the gymnasium and proceeded to unlock the doors; only to find out that they already were. So he walked inside and was received a whiff of stale air, dry wood, and the scent of volleyballs. Sugawara was seated on the bench. His legs were stretched out and Daichi could see that Sugawara's eyes have that misted and lethargic look and they glazed over the court.

Daichi cleared his throat.

"Ah, hullo Daichi," Sugawara replied, turning his head towards the captain, whose arms were akimbo. "You found me much quicker than the previous time I went into hiding," he added

"It's the same hiding place, but you didn't lock the door this time," said Daichi.

"Well, I thought that the first place you would think of is this place. With that, you must have considered that I borrowed the other set of keys from Shimizu in order to get inside. So I decided to leave the doors unlocked, but closed, to save you the trouble of having to unlock them again," Sugawara explained. "Oh, and I felt like being eco-friendly today! So I only turned on the spotlights," he added with a grin on his face.

"Brilliant as usual," Daichi mundanely praised Sugawara. "Switch them off and let's go to the club room."

It was just to two of them as they make their way to the club room. The pattering of their feet was the only sound they heard.

"Well, none of the other after-school activities start as early as ours'," Sugawara spoke to they sky.

Daichi did not bother to acknowledge his commentary. Sugawara continued talking.

"I know you don't want me to mention this, Daichi, but you must be extremely worried; more worried than the previous tournament. You're trying not to show it to anybody though, and I hope you didn't chew your fingernails until they became painfully raw."

Daichi gagged.

"My nails?" he sputtered. "How did you even figure that out?" he demanded.

"Your hands are in your pockets, despite how warm it is outside. I inferred that there's something about your hands you don't want me to see, because you usually keep your arms out when you walk. So the remaining possibility is that you hacked off your fingernails the night before and it was pretty painful, making you stop the chewing. Had you not been in pain, you would've continued torturing your nails during lessons today. But you didn't," Sugawara began.

"Seriously? Were you watching me all day?" Daichi asked in shock.

"I knew you wouldn't be sane, buddy. Today's games are super important!" Sugawara replied earnestly. "Also, you balled your hands into tight fists in attempts to make it less painful. I can see them in your trousers."

Daichi sighed and reluctantly took his hands out of his pockets. Sugawara was on point once again.

"It's not as painful as it looks, really," Daichi informed Sugawara. "Nothing's more painful than receiving one of the captain's serves from Aoba Jousai."

Sugawara chuckled, "I guess you're right there."

" _But_ ," Sugawara continued, "You're fingernails still look terrible. I suggest a solution of aloe vera and honey** the instant you get home."

" _Pfft_. No wonder your skin looks like a girl's."

" _Excuse me!?_ "

By then, Daichi had already unlocked the club room door. None of the others were here yet. He ordered Sugawara not to breathe a word to him anymore and was about to visualise his defence tactics when Sugawara spoke up.

"Okay, but you should consider getting yourself a new pair of trousers if you want to feel comfortable in March," was what he said before zipping his lips.

Daichi would have throttled him to death on the spot- but he was having a difficult time changing out of his uniform trousers.

Three minutes later, Nishinoya slammed the door open and the seniors watched as he stood aside for Asahi to go in.

" _In_!" Nishinoya barked at Asahi.

Asahi meekly slipped out of his shoes and stepped into the clubroom. Following that, Nishinoya hopped in and slammed the door shut, yanking out his shoes in succession. Asahi winced.

" _Greetings! Daichi! Sugawara!_ " hollered Nishinoya.

The seniors greeted him back in a toned down scale and smirked at Asahi.

"Didn't know you needed an escort, Asahi," sniggered Sugawara.

Asahi felt as though he was slapped in the face.

Daichi was worse.

"You're really a wimp, aren't you?" he commented icily.

His words grounded Asahi's remaining shreds of dignity into the drain.

If that was not enough, Daichi added, "Don't worry. You'll be able to score many points for us today." with a smile.

Meanwhile, Sugawara's nose twitched and raised his eyebrows at Nishinoya.

"Nishinoya," he started.

" _Yes!_ " The latter responded.

"Calm down... Didn't I tell you not to skip your laundry once every two days?"

"But it's _okay!_ I never wore it until today!"

Sugawara tsked. He beckoned Nishinoya over and seeked his permission to open his school bag.

"You should have washed your jersey after Shimizu gave it to you last training," he scolded Nishinoya.

"The smell of deodrant has gone since last weekend. Also, keeping it in a plastic bag from the supermarket doesn't help to retain the smell..." Sugawara went on as he fished out a crumbly plastic bag and cringed.

"But I couldn't let the lovely scent and kindness of Kiyoko-san go!" Whimpered Nishinoya, who took his shirt out of the bag and hugged it tenderly to his chest. "I will never forget how she came running towards me at the school gate, taking my jersey out of her bag like-"

He imitated a waiter who was about to take the lid off a plate towards the others.

" _-fwoosh!_ _'Nishinoya! You forgot your jersey. Here!'_ She cried. My heart _melted._ " He finished dramatically.

"He's gone, isn't he?" Daichi moaned as Nishinoya sunk gently into the floor with glistening eyes.

"Quite the contrary, Daichi..." Sugawara laughed. "Who wants to bet the next pair who will come in next?"

"The fact that you guessed that two people are coming at the same time already makes us lose..." Asahi lamented.

"Eh? I thought I made it easier for you to win with that hint."

"Oh, well, but..."

Poor Asahi was cut off by what sounded like a pair of screaming pidgeons.

Ten seconds later, there was the oddball duo, panting like dogs, by the door.

"I... Won... Kageyama..." Hinata heaved between pants.

"... Rubbish... You... Idiot..." Kageyama retorted.

"I won."

"No, you didn't."

"That makes us tie."

"Idiot. No."

"I can't believe you'd waste your breathe on this, honestly," murmured Tsukishima as he sauntered into the room with Yamaguchi, who stuck his tongue out at the other duo, by his side.

The bickering ensued, roping in Tsukishima and Yamaguchi as well, for ten more minutes until Daichi put his foot down. His insides were rattling with annoyance. He got Asahi to try to pry Nishinoya off the floor to no avail. The rest of the second years were not here yet. Sugawara stayed quiet throughout the chaos and folded up his uniform. Daichi knew that he was already starting to clear his mind, which irritated Daichi even further.

"I suppose you know where the rest are," Daichi stonily spoke to Sugawara.

Sugawara simply nodded and he remained kneeling on the scratchy mat.

"Ennoshita and the rest are trying to get Tanaka to recover below us, for Tanaka tragically crumbled upon hearing about Nishinoya's fortunate run in with Shimizu," he replied. " _And_ we might want to leave in seven minutes, unless you want another cup of tea with the vice-principal." He added.

Daichi sighed in resignation. With a loud clap of his hands, he immediately got the argument to cease and hurried everyone out of the clubroom and into the bus by the time they saw the dreaded vice principal go up to their clubroom via the other staircase.

"Hurry, hurry!" Sugawara urged the team, being the last to jump in and slam the bus door loudly.

Everybody jumped. That was violence from Sugawara. Sugawara took the seat next to Daichi and gave him a cheeky grin that only he would understand. Daichi heaved another long sigh and looked the other way.

He figured that he would do his visualisation during the ride.

 _*This was something that really happened.  
_

 _**This was entirely made up by me, though I do know that aloe vera soothes the skin. You are strongly advised against following Sugawara's suggested remedy because it only works on anime characters.  
_

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm pretty stoked to work on this story because I've planned all sorts of surprises! I promise to commit to this one, along with _Oliver and Len's Holiday Project._ Please review and follow! How often I update varies from a few weeks to a few months. However, I strive to give quality; you can trust me on that (:


	2. Fundraising

**Disclaimer:** The concept of the game is not originally by me. I only made up the concept behind _The Class Room  
_ and the name of the rooms in the game.

* * *

"Maybe we should give it a try..." Yamaguchi said, again.

"No."

"But a lot of people are queuing up..."

"But Hinata and Kageyama are in the queue, so it must be for idiots."

"Yachi's with them, though."

"Oh, but it's just another way to rip me off my money," Tsukishima concluded.

It was Karasuno High School's annual fundraising carnival and Tsukishima was spending his break with Yamaguchi. Boy was he relieved to escape from having to entertain other students, parents, and children the size of midgets at his class' booth. But he did not enjoy being stuck in a thick sea of visitors as they swarmed to the other booths in the building. He felt as though the school turned into a sauna. Little beads of perspiration were tricking down his neck and the air seemed sorely tempted to choke him at his nostrils. There weren't any empty places where he could sit on the steps and use his phone. Had it not been for Yamaguchi, he wouldn't have bought a set of tickets. There went his after-school snack.

Besides, most of the booths were extremely tacky and trash. Most of the games required you to throw items through holes that were roughly cut out of flimsy cardboard. There were the shooting challenges that seemed super easy (That's what people thought before handing over their tickets). The only reason why having a point system mattered was to be able win one of the alpacasso plush toys worth 1000 points. Personally, Tsukishima would take 330 Yen to an arcade to rake in a mini stream of alpacasso key chains than to be given just five bullets in a Nerf gun that's been dropped on the floor too many times.

Therefore, he did not expect Class 3-4's _Escape Room!_ to be as good as the real thing.

Yamaguchi peered at the instructions board and murmured, "If you go in groups of three, each player pays 3 tickets. But with every additional player, each player only has to pay 1 ticket."

There would go three of his 12 tickets.

"Tsukki, want to join Hinata and the others?" Yamaguchi asked him.

"If we join them, we'd definitely fail," Tsukishima replied indignantly.

Still, he fought past the crowd to approach the trio who were near the front of the queue. Kageyama was the first to spot him and Yamaguchi. He tapped Hinata on the shoulder and pointed at them (which was _too_ obvious).

"Hullo, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima!" Yachi chirruped when they were within hearing distance.

Tsukishima nodded in response and glared at the other two, leaving Yamaguchi to negotiate with her to join them. An agreement was made soon after, allowing them to cut the long queue. Hinata was positively beaming.

"Whoo! I can use my last two tickets to have a go at _Whackball_ again," cheered Hinata.

"You just want to beat my high score, idiot," retorted Kageyama.

Tsukishima recalled that _Whackball_ was the name of Class 2-3's game booth. Many people were drawn to the booth, and he vaguely remembered someone continuously shouting into a speaker to promote their booth. He had to stand on a table in order to be seen.

Kageyama and Hinata got into another stupid argument while Yamaguchi and Yachi engaged themselves in a civilised conversation. What they were talking about, Tsukishima did not bother. His ears were already filled with the chatter of hundreds of other people. Pitiable.

There was a table to handle the intake of players at the front of the booth. As the crowd in front of them began to thin, Tsukishima saw Daichi collecting tickets from the group in front of them.

"Thank you for playing! _The Graveyard_ is located right above this level. Please follow our escort to the room!" Daichi spoke professionally, gesturing towards one of his classmates with his hand.

Yachi yelped at the sound of Daichi's voice.

"Oh, so this is the game that everybody's been talking about?" She squealed. "I didn't know it was Daichi and Sugawara's class!"

Tsukishima's eyes nearly popped out.

So _that_ explained the popularity of the escape room. It probably was not some buff to bamboozle people into spilling their tickets and waste 15 minutes of their life.

"You're right, Yachi! That's why we _got_ to try it," Hinata eagerly replied."My classmates have been telling me about how much fun they had when they went!"

"Why is it so fun, though?" Kageyama asked Hinata, whose eyes were glimmering.

"They told me that the puzzles are really interesting and _cool_! It's like they were part of a real crime scene, you know?" Hinata explained.

"I hope you're kidding," Tsukishima muttered under his breath.

They should leave the queue and scram in order to save themselves from humiliation immediately. However, it was too late.

Looking up from the list, Daichi's mouth turned into an 'O' upon seeing his five juniors.

"O-oh! Hello! Thanks for coming..." he stuttered.

 _His look of astonishment clearly shows that he feels bad for us,_ thought Tsukishima. _We just signed up for torture._

"Hello, captain!" Hinata greeted enthusiastically. "What can we pick?"

"Well, we have six rooms, but here are the ones that are free in the next five minutes," Daichi explained, showing them a list of names. "You can go for _President's_ _Office_ or _The_ _Asylum_."

"Are there difficulty levels?" Tsukishima asked.

Daichi shook his head.

"Nope, each of the rooms has its special features and puzzles."

"What's the most exciting one?" Hinata asked with a huge grin etched on his face.

Maybe they should head for the graveyard.

"If you want something exciting..." Daichi started, his eyes hovering above the list. "I would recommend-"

"- The class room's free now!" called Sugawara, sticking his head out of the door behind the registration table.

"The class room? How about you guys go for that one then? It should be exciting enough," Daichi asked them.

Hinata complied without hesitation, plunking his ticket on the table. The rest followed suit, including a begrudging Tsukishima. After accounting for their tickets, Daichi referred them to Sugawara. Tsukishima could hear groans of disappointment from the people behind them as they were led away away from the registration table.

"Man, now we can't try _The Class Room_! I was looking forward to that one."

"I heard that it's the best of the rooms!"

"Didn't we nearly find the key in that level? It was _so_ hard."

"What a stroke of luck! They're gonna have tons of fun. Should we wait until it's free again?"

They were _doomed_.

* * *

Sugawara stopped them outside the closed door and whipped out a piece of paper with a grin on his face that reeked of excitement and possible sadism (to this Tsukishima cringed).

" _Okay!_ Please listen up to the instructions," Sugawara began, clearing his throat. "The scenario is: your class room turned into a maze. You have to get out of here before you and your classmates get swallowed by volcanic larva heading towards Miyagi 15 minutes away. There is a key within the class room that can lead you out of here and to the rescue helicopters at the roof top. The school's electricity is cut off, but there are two spare torch lights in the cupboard. Your phones have been rendered useless as the signal's cut too, so it is inadvisable to use them."

He gave them five seconds to absorb the information before allowing them into the room.

"You can approach me if you want to know the time. To quit the Escape Room, everybody has to raise their arms and shout ' _We quit!_ '. Be safe, and don't get hurt; I'll be in the room to supervise," he finished off, casting a glance at Yachi.

Yachi was beginning to tremble and her skin seemed to be coming whiter. Too bad for her. Tsukishima wondered why she even agreed to accompany Hinata and Kageyama in the first place. He would have outright refused to work with those two idiots.

However, there was not a moment to spare. They were going to crack a nearly impossible puzzle masterminded by Karasuno's favourite detective.

A burst of cool air powdered over him as they stepped into the escape room. The first things Tsukishima's eyes saw, before the door was closed behind them, were tables.

Then, the group was plunged into darkness, save for the stream of light coming from the creak of the door. Accompanying the darkness were sounds of larva floating and the sound of bubbles forming and bursting. He could barely make out Yamaguchi's silhouette. He could not see any clock. Hinata gasped.

 _Unnecessary_ , Tsukishima thought to himself.

"Look for the torch lights!" Yamaguchi exclaimed somewhere from Tsukishima's left.

Then, he heard the screech of a table that was pushed roughly against the floor.

"Stop moving around unnecessarily, or else we'll make a mess," he found himself telling the others. "The cupboard is usually at the back of the classroom, so we need to get there."

"Based on where we entered, we are probably at the side of the class room. So let's move to our left!" he heard Yachi shrill.

They shuffled their feet and reached out their arms, hoping to feel a wall and avoid table legs. They ended up walking in a straight line, which made Tsukishima doubt that the room had turned into a maze. His fingers brushed over the tabletops until they poked into something tubular. He picked it up with his right hand and found a button. He wondered why none of the rest, who were in front of him, found this object. Besides, their arms could not possibly reach the walls with the tables in between them. Without a second thought, he pressed the button and a small ball of pink-white light glowed from one of the ends. Hinata shrieked.

"Sorry, just picked this up," Tsukishima apologised. "I'll keep it on since we haven't been able to see anything."

"Pass it to me, I'm at the front!" Kageyama called.

As Tsukishima gave up the light stick, his eyes accustomed to the darkness. He wasn't entirely wrong- most of the tables were in their original positions. Those in the middle of the classroom were rearranged to make space for a lone, low-rise table with a bulky pile of... Things. A long piece of black cloth was draped across the wall opposite them, preventing natural light to seep into the room. He spotted the cupboard on his left.

"Maybe we should split up; some of us can keep searching for the torch lights while some of us should start looking for clues." Yamaguchi suggested.

"Okay!"

Kageyama and Yachi ran towards the cupboard while Hinata, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima went for the mysterious pile.

"Oi, Kageyama! We need the light thing!" Hinata shouted.

"But we need it here, too!" Kageyama called back. "Something's making the knobs stuck, so we're trying to get rid of it."

Tsukishima clicked his tongue. Screw the need for light. If he looked hard enough, with the little light that was available, he could identify whatever was in the pile. The time was ticking. He knelt on the floor with the rest and fingered the first thing his hands touched. It was rectangular, a bit bigger than his hands, and slightly thick. He'd be darned if it wasn't a text book he was holding. Was there something within the pages?

"Is this pile made up of books?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Yeah, but what are we supposed to do with them?" Hinata replied. "We can't read them; Yachi and Kageyama still have the light thing," he added.

"We'll make do without the light. Check if all of them are text books because the one I'm holding is one. Are they of the same size or type?" Tsukishima said.

He mentally calculated an estimation of 15 books from the size of the pile of books. If they had to blindly look through each book for clues, they might end up taking about five minutes. And they probably had about 10 minutes left. They weren't having much progress. It would simplify things if they could find a variant. As the three of them squinted their eyes as they looked at one cover after another, they concluded that they were geography text books for Year 3s.

"Why geography text books?" Hinata blurted, flabbergasted. "And it's so dark, I want it to be brighter!" He shouted in fury.

Tsukishima sighed. Hinata was being a pain.

"Geography text books have world maps in them." Yamaguchi stated.

"So what?" Tsukishima asked.

"Well, we need to find out _where_ the key is, don't we?"

Yamaguchi flipped one the of text books to the first few pages, where the world map is usually printed on. Hinata and Tsukishima did the same, trying to look for any scribbled hints or markings.

"10 minutes left!"

Tsukishima jumped. Sugwara boomed from his back. He had forgotten that Sugwara was also in the room. It also could have been his imagination, but the temperature of the room was rising and the room was becoming redder, but brighter.

Well, it could be a reminder that the larva was on its way to swallow them alive.

They found nothing different about the maps. There were not any markings. Out of habit, he put his fingers on his lips and thought of an alternative. They had spent the past five minutes looking for more torch lights and figuring out what the pile of books were all about, both to no avail. Brilliant!

"Wait!" Yamaguchi exclaimed as he pulled out a sheet of paper from the text book he was holding.

The room was still too dark to determine what that paper was, but Tsukishima could tell that it was not originally part of the text book. The paper was more square and small.

* * *

Sugawara nodded his head with satisfaction and reached for a set of controls from his pocket a second time. He was perched on one of the tables close to the wall and could observe whatever everyone was doing in the room without being too close to the action. In his left hand was a Casio stopwatch, which he could see with a pair of night vision goggles he borrowed from one of his classmates.

He had to remind himself not to hum out loud as he carefully pushed a few knobs on the handmade control tab by himself and three other classmates. They would have made the handles and buttons more sturdy if they had more time to work on their only draft, but he was grateful that they created it sufficiently for use in this escape room. After he had fiddled with the controls, four of the seven light bulbs secretly hidden in the room started to give off a soft, white glow. One inside the cupboard, one under the table of books, one at the exit, and one at the corner of the classroom.

With high hopes, Sugawara continued to make his observations.

* * *

"Can you draw anything from that?" Tsukishima asked Yamaguchi swiftly, readjusting his spectacles.

"Well, it feels very thin and it's rougher than the pages of the books. Maybe it's rice paper?" Yamaguchi replied.

He fingered the edges with both of his hands, only to nearly rip it apart when he saw white light coming from the pile of books in front of him. He cursed.

" _Finally_ , we can see!" Hinata exclaimed in agony. "Oi! Kageyama! Hey, Yachi! You don't need to break the cupboard open anymore." He called out to the duo.

"But something's glowing inside the cupboard!" Yachi replied.

Tsukishima plucked the paper from Yamaguchi's hands and brought it closer to the light shining from the table to have a better look at it. His actions proved fruitful when he spotted some scribbled words written faintly in pencil. Steadying the paper directly over the light source, he read them aloud.

" _Align what has been abandoned, and hope that you won't see the time_ ," he read.

Oh, the agony. This was another set of riddles. Maybe they should just give up. He wanted to stop understanding and overcoming the hints. It was absolutely pointless. This wasn't real in the first place.

"Eight minutes left!" Sugawara called out.

And he doubted that they could find their way out in that amount of time.

The temperature rose and the room became redder and brighter. It seemed to make Tsukishima heat up with frustration under his class t-shirt. His spectacles kept drooping, annoyingly, down his nose from having to look down at the books all the time. He was breathing heavily to keep his temper from rising. Hinata looked like a blur as he scampered around the tables; a fly Tsukishima wanted to smack away.

" _Align what has been abandoned..._ Are we supposed to realign the books?" Yamaguchi thought aloud.

That seemed logical, so Tsukishima assisted Yamaguchi, who was stacking the books on top of one another. Despite the suggestion, he could not spot any gateway to proceed. Hinata had ditched them and flown to the cupboard, but he did not bother to ask him what he was doing.

When the books have been neatly arranged into two stacks and placed on both ends of the table, with the light glowing from the middle of the table (It was just a light bulb, how _idiotic_ they were!). That helped with the mess, but they were stuck. Tsukishima could sense that Yamaguchi was going to break into his usual, nervous laughter and probably scratch his head sheepishly. If _only_ they could get a lead.

Just then, Sugawara coughed.

"Do you guys want to pay two tickets for a hint?" he asked.

Tsukishima could spit.

" _Two_ tickets?" he asked skeptically.

Sugawara merely smiled.

"Let's just buy a hint!" Kageyama shouted. "We don't know how to open the cupboard."

Tsukishima was closest to Sugawara. So with a heavy heart, he handed over two more of his precious tickets.

"It better be useful," he muttered under his breath.

"Would you like a clue for the cupboard or for the books?" Sugawara asked.

"The books please," Tsukishima growled softly. Since he gave up his own tickets, he would get to choose the clue. Besides, the cupboard just seemed to be a red herring.

Having taken Tsukishima's tickets with grace, Sugawara proceeded to give them the hint.

"Look at the spines of the books," Sugawara told them.

Immediately, Yamaguchi picked up one of the books and his eyes were enlarged. Picking up another book and putting the books back to back, he gasped.

"Tsukki!"

"What?"

"I think they are colour-coded!"

"What do you mean, Yamaguchi?" Yachi asked, walking towards them. She had swapped places with Hinata.

"There are squared bits of coloured paper pasted on the top of the spines," Yamaguchi explained, showing the books he was holding under the light.

"Hmm..." Yachi replied. "Let's see the rest of the spines!" She said.

Tsukishima complied to her suggestion and helped Yamaguchi to hold them under the small light for Yachi to see, consciously thinking about how long they seemed to be taking to get anywhere.

"Six minutes left!" Sugawara called. " _And you aren't allowed to bang the cupboard down!_ " He shrieked at Kageyama and Hinata, running towards them.

"Red, purple, blue, yellow, green, white, orange, no other colours..." Yachi chanted. " _Ah hah!_ They are the basic colours of a rainbow!" She exclaimed, putting her hands together.

Without losing another moment, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi started to grab the books from the other stack and arrange them in the correct order with Yachi, putting the white ones before the red ones. There were two books of each colour, making it 14 text books. As they sorted out the books, Hinata and Kageyama slopped back and watched, with an infuriated Sugawara breathing down their necks.

When Yamaguchi and Yachi were tidying up the long row of books, Tsukishima took a few steps back and rounded to a position where the most amount of light reflected against the spines. Therefore, he was facing everybody else in the room . All of them looked at him expectantly for a response and he had no idea how this turn of events took place. Trying his best not to stare at their faces, he trained his eyes on the books.

He could not see anything different.

Oh god. Did he buy the wrong clue?

He felt the heat coming up, from his back, to his shoulders, and slowly up his neck and cheeks. He stared even harder, hoping for a spark of inspiration.

"Tsukishima! Don't steam out!" Hinata warned.

Hinata's warning had caught him off-guard, popping him out of his train of concentration. He looked back at Hinata, narrowing his eyes. He also happened to catch Sugawara's eye; Sugawara was grinning, not to mention that he was wearing night-vision goggles. That was so unfair.

He did not know why he was grinning. Were they forgetting something important? Was there even time to search for more clues?

As though he was right on cue, Sugawara called out, " _Four_ minutes left!"

A shiver thundered down Tsukishima's spine. He had no idea why he was bothered by the attention, or why he was going along with the game. And he was still stuck.

* * *

"Why don't you come over here instead of staring at me like I'm Einstein or something?" Tsukishima blustered the rest of his group.

Rather bashfully, Yachi quickly joined him at the other side, followed by the others. Kageyama was spinning the invisible pen with his long fingers. It was the first thing they picked up upon entering the room.

 _They might be able make it_ , Sugawara thought to himself satisfyingly. _Only two other groups have made it this far, after they bought two or more hints._

He was keeping his fingers crossed. He would be triply proud of his juniors if they could break the code. When his group asked him to have a dry run of the first draft of _The Class Room_ during their preparation, he completed it single-handed in eight minutes and 46 seconds. It was the room he spent the longest time in. Despite that, he thought that the plot was not realistic enough to instill fear in their players. Sugawara had to admit that it was not easy to persuade his group mates to make some changes to the set up.

"Well, Sugawara, we aren't sure if anybody else could solve all the clues as quickly and effectively as you when our booth is open to the public," explained the leader of the group hesitantly.

Still, Sugawara persisted in a negotiation with them, and they eventually permitted two of his proposed changes. When he dragged Daichi and his group, who were in charge of _The Graveyard_ , to test their revised version, it was completed in 13 minutes and 57 seconds with one hint.

"You guys shouldn't have allowed Sugwara to change the game," Daichi told off Sugawara's group. "It's still manageable, and I agree that it's more exciting than ours, but we don't know if the others can endure it." He explained on behalf of his group.

Looks of scorn were thrown by some of Sugawara's group mates, while some nodded in agreement. But they decided to keep the revised version in a vote, making Sugawara feel less guilty about voicing his opinions. Besides, _The Class Room_ was the most popular room, with some groups paying extra tickets to reserve a time slot.

Now, Tsukishima and the rest of his juniors have solved 90% of the clues. They were slightly faster than Daichi's group at the beginning because they picked up some of the clues that were meant to be discovered later, but they seemed to be stalled at this junction of the game. The seconds were ticking away, snatching away another minute. Sugawara's insides were getting jittery and his anticipation grew bigger.

They _just_ needed to do _one_ more thing.

And that thing was _right_ under their noses. If _only_ they decided to buy another clue, the one which he never had a chance to use.

"Kageyama, stop spinning that thing! You're making a lot of noise," Hinata scolded him.

Then, Sugawara saw Tsukishima look up from his apparent trance to see what Kageyama was doing.

He saw his eyes glistening.

"Kageyama..." Tsukishima started to speak.

 _Yes!_ Sugawara cheered in his mind. _Great job!_

* * *

In three seconds, Tsukishima rocketed up and snatched the light tube which was in mid-spin from Kageyama's hands. Readjusting his spectacles, he brought the tube close to his eyes to realise that it was a marker with an inbuilt light on its cap. Out of pure instinct, he popped the cap off and dabbed the nip of the marker on the back of his hand. His skin felt wet from the ink but he could not see any marks.

"Did the marker run out of ink?" Yachi asked, puzzled.

He shook his head.

"This is... This is an- invisible marker!" he sputtered.

" _Yikes!_ Sorry- _two_ minutes left!" Sugawara yelped, clapping his hand to his mouth.

Tsukishima was quivering so much that he hoped nobody could see how anxious he was. He grabbed the first book to his left and flicked the light on. Shining the light over the paper, an alphabet was formed.

 _I_

"Isn't that the letter 'I' in the English alphabet?" Yachi exclaimed.

So they were being made to use English now.

Placing the book back with the rest, he skimmed over the rest of the spines with the light while Yachi and Hinata knelt beside him. Yachi began to lisp the alphabets as the patch of light bounced on each spine.

 _I  
_

 _N  
_

 _-Blank-  
_

 _T  
_

 _E  
_

 _H  
_

 _-Blank-  
_

 _-Blank-  
_

 _S  
_

 _C  
_

 _E  
_

 _R  
_

 _N  
_

 _E  
_

Tsukishima rolled his eyes. He _totally_ understood what he saw.

"I think this is a sentence!" Yachi commented. "We need to rearrange some of the books to solve it, _quickly_!" She added desperately, her eyes trailing up towards the ceiling.

The rest also looked up to see that the ceiling had changed. Plastered in the middle was a digital timer.

They had another minute left to their doom, and Tsukishima did not want to lose.

"Hold this," he instructed to Hinata as he tossed the pen to him. Hinata was still staring at the ceiling with a rapt look. What was with him?

Snapping his attention back to the books, Tsukishima swapped the books with the orange spines, forming the word _THE_.

"The yellow ones don't seem important," Yachi piped in.

She grabbed blue spines and swapped their places.

"Does this work?" She turned to ask Tsukishima frantically with her sparkling eyes.

He was slightly taken aback. _How would he know!?_

22.51 seconds had passed.

Sugawara held his breath and took the goggles off. He did not need it anymore, and he wanted to watch what was happening with his own eyes.

Tsukishima snatched the pen back from Hinata (who was _still_ ogling at the ceiling, damn it) and checked.

 _I  
_

 _N  
_

 _-Blank-  
_

 _T  
_

 _H  
_

 _E  
_

 _-Blank-  
_

 _-Blank-  
_

 _S  
_

 _C  
_

 _R  
_

 _E  
_

 _N  
_

 _E_

" _In... The... Screne_ ," Yachi read aloud.

"Is 'screne' a real word?" Tsukishima asked, flabbergasted.

10.98 seconds whizzed by. The timer was beginning to buzz.

" _We have half a minute left!_ " Hinata shrieked. " _We're gonna die! The larva will eat us alive! We can't play volleyball anymore!_ "

"Shut _up_ , idiot!" Kageyama hollered, grabbing Hinata by his hair.

 _Screne, screne, screne, screne, screne._ Tsukishima kept repeating the word in his head. It sounded familiar. Maybe he should have paid extra attention in his English classes.

Heck, maybe they misspelled 'screen'. There was only one way to check.

Picking up his feet, Tsukishima sprinted for the blackboard and pulled down the screen teachers use to project from the visualisers.

They had 3 _.11_ seconds left.

The key was taped to the bottom of the screen with masking tape. He ripped it out and dashed for the door, but they had run out of time.

" _Time's up_!" Sugawara shouted.

* * *

Cold, refreshing water became Tsukishima's good friend.

He cupped his hands under the tap and splashed it over his face with relish. They were out of the room, defeated by a second. He did not realise that his palms were perspiring until he gave up the key to Sugawara. Was he _that_ excited? Still, he could not believe that they were so close; he had the key in the lock the moment they ran out of time!

Well, it was not as though they were really stuck in the classroom. It was merely a simulation. However, he found himself wanting to go back to the queue and have another go.

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi called out as he placed his hands under the hand dryer.

"Yeah?" Tsukishima asked blandly.

"I need to get back to my class' booth. See you afterwards?" He meekly asked.

Yamaguchi could sense a dense, grey cloud hovering above his best friend.

Tsukishima nodded and replied, "See you."

 _Crap! I pissed him off_ , Yamaguchi thought as he shuffled away from the toilet. _  
_

Tsukishima merely watched his best friend go and turned his attention back to the sink. He would wash his hands for the last time and head back to his class as well. With a subtle sigh, he turned on the tap.

"Oh, hello there Tsukishima!"

Tsukishima jumped, flicking water all over the place.

"Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you," Sugawara apologised frantically with his hands in the air. "You alright?" he asked as he took the sink next to Tsukishima's.

"I'm fine," Tsukishima replied, suppressing another sigh.

As he readjusted his spectacles in front of the mirror, he spotted Sugawara applying eye drops.

"I didn't know you wore contact lenses, Sugawara," he commented disinterestedly.

"Eh? Do I wear contact lenses?" Sugawara asked himself as he blinked the extra drops away.

Sugawara turned to face Tsukishima and widened his eyes.

"Look carefully, and tell me if I'm wearing any," he instructed his junior.

Tsukishima was just very glad that they were in one of the least crowded toilets in the school. He never had to look into anybody's eyes like that before [apart from his family members'] and he wondered why the heck he was complying to his senior's request. But there was something about Sugawara's eyes that were a little... Different. It was certain that Sugawara was not wearing any contacts because the size of his pupils and irises weren't blown out of proportion.

"You aren't, but your eyes are unnaturally amber. Are they normal?" he sneered.

Sugawara sighed and looked wistfully back at the mirror.

"You're quite observant, Tsukishima. But you're only partially right," he replied in an approving tone. "That's why you could lead the rest throughout the game!" He gleefully added.

"It wasn't much," Tsukishima lied. "Your rendition of the game was just convoluted. We would have been able to to solve it if you gave us a few more minutes." He sourly added.

Sugawara chuckled again and patted his shoulder.

"You're so shy, but you have a sharp eye for things. You could be my assistant the next time I have a case," he commented.

"Like I would want to waste my brain power over 'detective work'."

But Sugawara's compliments were pleasantly shadowed among his thoughts for the rest of the day and the last thing he mulled over when he was [thankfully] lying on his bed was the _Escape Room!_

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for your patience! I've been working on this chapter for months... Please review and follow maybe? (: Also: this story was in Tsukishima's POV and I plan to have a different POV per chapter!


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